If you know me well, you know I keep to myself a fair amount of the time. I don't know when I closed myself off to the general public, as I used to be downright social, but it is what it is. Keith's been critical as far as enticing me to occasionally venture out. So have his friends, who over these past few years have become near and dear to me.

It makes me laugh, because I remember when we were first getting together, how I panicked. I was still living in Hamburg:

Gee whiz... this guy brings over cd's every night and leaves them here, and he's got a tooth brush and deoderant in my bathroom. Our cd's are mixing together, and becoming this giant melee of who's whose?? He's willing to drive out here from Tonawanda any night of the week and have to get up that much earlier for work in the morning. This is too much too soon! Abort- abort! Oh man, I was crazy over it.

What a ridiculous fool I was. That really was my thought too~ "This will never work out- he's stifling me." Apparently Keith was a bit more engaged in reality than was I back then. I'm thankful he's had the patience to stick it out and not give up on me through all of this. And when I say all of this, I'm not kidding. This man has the patience of a saint and the forgiving nature to go along with it. Almost like he's known what we were supposed to be to one another for all this time, and he's just been willing to step back and wait until I figure it out.

Sure took me long enough, eh? From first kiss July 2006 thru spring of this year when I accepted us for what we are to one another. He's the one. Without a doubt.

Perfect sick-day sky. Washboard clouds/hopeful/despondent.

At a look, you might think my street has not many trees, but in truth, it's just that little patch. The October storm was not kind to Lovering west, mid-block. The rest of this street is filthy with trees.